Salvatore Maranzano

Salvatore Maranzano (31 July 1886-10 September 1931) was the boss of the Maranzano crime family (the future Bonanno crime family) from 1930 to 1931, succeeding Nicolo Schiro and preceding Joseph Bonanno. Maranzano was a powerful American Mafia boss in New York City, and he became the Capo di tutti cappi ("boss of bosses" of the Mafia) after defeating and killing Joe Masseria during the Castellammarese War. However, he would reign for just nine months, and he was murdered by his own men in 1931, wiping out the old order of the Mafia.

Biography
Salvatore Maranzano was born on 31 July 1886 in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy, and he studied to become a Catholic priest before becoming interested in the Sicilian Mafia. Maranzano became a mobster at home, and he developed a fascination with Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire, earning him the nickname "Little Caesar". Maranzano emigrated to the United States shortly after World War I, and he became a real estate broker as well as a Prohibition bootlegger in his new hometown of New York City, New York, using Brooklyn as his base. Later, Maranzano would become involved in the heroin trade and prostitution, and he made Joseph Bonanno his underboss.

Castellammarese War
In 1929, an emboldened Maranzano decided to seize power from Joe Masseria, causing the Castellammarese War to break out between the two mob bosses. Maranzano's family, which included Bonanno, Stefano Magaddino, Joseph Profaci, Gaetano Reina, Tommy Gagliano, and Tommy Lucchese, succeeded in killing several high-ranking leaders from the Masseria crime family's upper echelon, and Masseria was murdered by his own right-hand man, Lucky Luciano, on 15 April 1931. Maranzano gave Luciano all of Masseria's rackets and allowed for him to become the new boss of his own family, the future Genovese crime family. Maranzano hailed him as a hero, and he told all of his fellow mob bosses that they would become rich. Maranzano was responsible for the creation of the "Five Families" of New York organized crime, dividing New York's organized crime into families run by Profaci, Lucchese, Luciano, Frank Scalice, and himself.

Downfall
Luciano decided that it was time for the Mafia to become Americanized and decentralized, and Luciano and Meyer Lansky arranged for several Jewish Murder, Inc. hitmen to murder Maranzano at his office. Men posing as federal policemen entered Maranzano's office under the pretense of arresting him, only to gun him down. One of the gunmen was said to have been Eli Thompson, who fired the fatal bullet that ended Maranzano.